Chapter 489: A Dilemma

Cao Wenzhao was a man of no particular talent.

He just stood out for one thing — killing efficiency. In four years since entering the pass, with Shaanxi's registered populace at four million, Cao Wenzhao led his troops and lopped off over thirty-six thousand heads.

At slaughtering mobs, he was a professional. Even leading a mob to slaughter another mob, few men alive had more experience than him.

When Xie Erhu's Mongol troops appeared west of the Zhuanglang Garrison's river, Cao Wenzhao's men fired signal cannons in warning. In a very short time, the soldiers stood in a field-character grid — the formation was basically set before Xie Erhu's Mongol cavalry had even reached them.

In truth, the army was panicked. Even Cao Wenzhao himself was a little panicked. No one had built field fortifications, and they were still in armor.

In his entire three-thousand-man camp, less than a third of the soldiers had their armor fully donned. At a moment like this, if they didn't form up, they were guaranteed to be swept away in one wave.

In an extremely brief span, Cao Wenzhao gauged the enemy cavalry's distance, the time his soldiers needed to don armor, and even assessed the enemy's troop type, then directly ordered his men into the simplest, fastest low-level camp formation they could form.

He chose a simple camp formation commonly used by commanders below the rank of Battalion Commander — very straightforward: four sentry units of infantry formed the perimeter, one sentry unit of cavalry formed the center.

This formation was the fastest to assemble, often used when enemy cavalry held the numerical advantage, to fight many with few.

The fastest to form — the border troops always said, small drill every three days, large drill every five. This was the camp formation for the small drill. It didn't require combining camps to practice; a single squad commander could drill his unit on his own. It worked beautifully for fighting horse bandits or putting down rebellions.

The reason it wasn't a large-drill camp formation was that it had no reserved space to protect the baggage train. Typically, a Ming combined-camp grand formation was hollow at the center, with the innermost area used to stockpile supplies and livestock.

The instant he spotted the enemy, Cao Wenzhao had already considered the artillery and baggage outside the camp. Judging there was no time to pull them into the formation, he directly ordered assembly, leaving everything outside to scatter the enemy's attention.

The plan was brilliantly successful. From top to bottom, Xie Erhu's men fixed their attention entirely on those supplies.

The herder-soldiers naturally focused on rations and matériel, while the Mongol commanders leading the charge fixed their attention on the cannons.

Cannons were the lifelong nemesis of Mongol horse troops, but precisely for that reason, their allure to Mongol commanders surpassed everything under heaven.

Fortunately, their discipline over these two or three years since joining the Marshal's Command was decent. Even as their gazes toward the cannons blazed with longing, they still didn't simply break ranks, only splitting off a few small squads to seize the cannons and supplies.

The main body did not stop there. It quickly fanned out into dozens of bands, enveloping the entire battlefield from three sides.

When the chaotic thunder of hooves on the battlefield gradually quieted, several dozen Mongol horse bands poised to charge stretched across the horizon in three directions. Each band was composed of loose squads of three to five riders, hands on their saddles, awaiting their commanders' orders.

In that final, hair-trigger moment, Ahai Daiqing actually made an effort to dissuade Xie Erhu from charging the formation. He said, "Let's just encircle them. Ming troops love to hold fast and wait for relief, as if none of them know that relief never comes."

But Xie Erhu considered it for only an instant before rejecting the proposal. Ming relief troops indeed never came, but this camp formation was at its most vulnerable right now.

If they really waited until those brutes in the square formation had all donned their armor and readied their assault, how humiliating would it be to get punched through head-on?

A man knows his own household's business. Xie Erhu knew perfectly well that if the Ming troops truly got ready to fight to the death, his Mongol soldiers couldn't stop them. The sole chance at victory wasn't banking on Ming relief never arriving — it was surrounding and smashing them dead before they could prepare.

After a pause of barely an instant, Xie Erhu, surrounded by clustered battle flags, waved his hand forward. The guards at his side loosed whistling arrows into the sky. Amid the shrill shriek of the signal arrows, horse band after horse band thundered into motion, crashing toward Cao Wenzhao's formation from three sides.

In an instant, feathered arrows flew. From the west, south, and east, each Mongol horse band performed its assigned role, pulling out every trick they had.

In each direction, three horse bands formed light cavalry units that galloped past to loose arrows and probe the formation's corners, cycling in endless repetition. Six horse bands dismounted, forming two waves of three echelons each — assault infantry, readying, and reserve. And three more horse bands, mounted on elite steeds, clad in heavy armor, gripping long-shafted weapons, prepared as the final shock cavalry to smash the formation.

The Ming response was not swift — or rather, Cao Wenzhao did not intend for his soldiers to counterattack quickly. He simply had the cavalry inside the field-character grid make ready, draping their mounts in half-armor horse barding.

The purpose of a square formation was not to stand still and take a beating. After all, opportunities for two armies to negotiate a time and place for battle were vanishingly rare. Most meeting engagements began without battle lines deployed. The way to minimize losses while deploying battle lines in a meeting engagement was the square formation.

It was just that the battlefield was unfair the vast majority of the time. Many armies could never even hold out until their battle lines deployed — they were routed before they could form a square.

It was akin to the guard position in hand-to-hand combat. The guard and the formation shared the same purpose: before knowing what kind of attack the opponent would use, to maintain a shape that balanced offense and defense as much as possible, to avoid being floored by a single punch or shattered in a single blow.

Receive the move first, then deliver your own.

Wave after wave of Mongol cavalry surged closer, loosed arrows as they galloped past, wheeled, and circled back. Cao Wenzhao's formation stirred slightly on three sides, but the formation held.

For the large number of soldiers in the army from Ningxia and Gansu, Mongol horse-band galloping archery was nothing new. The cloth-faced iron armor and bowl helmets they wore could stop most incoming arrows.

As for the stirring, it wasn't because of raw recruits. It was precisely the veterans who found these Mongol soldiers under the Marshal's Command a novelty… they could actually afford forged-steel arrowheads!

They were vigorously urging the Mongol soldiers within their own formation to stop holding back and hurry up and upgrade to the Iron Age already.

In truth, quite a few of Cao Wenzhao's own Mongol troops were still shooting stone arrowheads or cast-iron arrowheads.

For the barbarian cavalrymen, weren't the forged arrowheads issued by Liangzhou Garrison better saved for hunting? Why waste them shooting people? Shoot a man and fail to kill him with one arrow, and he carries your arrow off with him. Hunting was different — no armor, the prey was sure to die.

The Ming troops nocked arrows on three sides. The battle line of three-eyed guns, long spears, and sword-and-shield men held unbreakable. Seeing that the skirmishing mounted herders' harassment was ineffective, rank after rank of dismounted nomadic infantry drove packhorses forward to screen against lead shot, their assault formations pressing in, ready for close combat.

Cao Wenzhao was ready for close combat too.

Only his direction of movement was not the front, but the fourth side — the north face, the one side not engaged in the fight, left open after the three-sided encirclement.

That was originally the direction the Mongol cavalry had left for them to rout — the "one" in "surround three, leave one open." But when Cao Wenzhao's command flags waved, the northern horizontal line split open from the center. The armored horse troops emerged from the formation, and the battle array took on a shape like the character 甴.

Then, filing out in succession, the horse troops split into two columns, fanning out east and west with infantry units, using cavalry to form an enormous width.

This was lethal. No one could withstand a flank and rear assault, let alone from men in iron armor and bowl helmets, riding horses clad in half-armor — half-equipped cavalry, intimidation factor maxed out.

Before Xie Erhu's eyes unfolded a maddening scene. After the three-sided encirclement's Mongol cavalry failed several probing charges, the dismounted herder-soldiers attempted to storm the formation in close combat. Behind them, the armored cavalry, itching for action, also gripped their hook-sickle spears, ready to charge in force.

After several waves of assault, the stamina of the soldiers inside the Ming square formation was rapidly draining. Lacking relief troops, the battle line showed signs of loosening in multiple places.

To Xie Erhu, the formation's collapse was right before his eyes.

But at precisely this moment, squad after squad of Ming cavalry deployed into a loose, broad horizontal line north of the battlefield and charged toward the flanks of the Mongol infantry locked in close combat on the east and west wings.

It was obvious to anyone that the flanks of the horizontal line formed by the dismounted herder-soldiers could not possibly withstand these cavalry charges. They would likely scatter before even clashing, while still separated by a hundred or two hundred paces.

So the Mongol cavalry in the rear, gripping their hook-sickle spears, immediately surged forward, attempting to intercept the Ming cavalry appearing on the flanks.

But faced with Ming horse squads attacking in small units, most Mongol cavalry, the moment a collision opportunity appeared, would actively choose to wheel their horses and retreat. Even when retreat was sometimes ill-advised and they were already forced into a head-on charge, they would still, at the final moment, wheel and withdraw at the cost of being pursued.

Yet the Ming cavalry could always press forward without hesitation.

Xie Erhu's worldview collapsed in an instant. This was damn unscientific!

In reality, the Mongol horse bands' performance was the normal behavior of elite cavalry. Among the dozen-plus horse squads that briefly clashed, four dared to meet the enemy head-on in a collision — that was already a very high ratio.

In the great battle of He-Huang, when the Marshal's Command cavalry led by Yang Yao charged head-on against Ming cavalry, the ratio of actual collisions wasn't even as high as in this battle. And that was after the Academy commanders had specifically imprinted an ideological steel seal on the cavalry officers' minds, telling them that out of a hundred cavalrymen, only three were brave enough to charge.

How on earth did Cao Wenzhao's Ming cavalry dare to collide like this?

Equipment dictates tactics.

This kind of half-armor horse barding gave the cavalryman an enormous psychological edge. First, its weight was far lighter than full barding. It used cotton armor and iron plates to protect the horse's forehead, neck, and chest, while leaving the horse's flanks, back, and hindquarters — places where heavy armor would hang — completely unprotected, so mobility was not poor.

Second, its protective power was very strong. During a collision, its frontal protection was equal to that of a fully barded cavalryman.

Riding such a warhorse conferred advantages in a cavalry duel far greater than it appeared.

Under normal circumstances, cavalry rarely collided with each other. From generals down to troopers, when two cavalry forces met, they had too many tactical options. Rather than fixating on striking the enemy cavalry, it was better to maneuver, find an opportunity to shake off the enemy horse, and provide an advantage for one's own infantry or artillery.

Even being driven from the battlefield could achieve a certain tactical effect. After all, to drive them off, the enemy cavalry likewise had to leave the battlefield. Not to mention they could later find a chance to return and crash into other units.

But when this type of half-armored cavalry encountered an opportunity for a head-on cavalry clash, the vast majority would simply crash straight in.

Because their equipment dictated that they were very fast in a head-on collision, but somewhat less efficient in pursuit and dispersal.

They could either charge in formation with frontal protection equal to fully-armored cavalry, or turn and flee with protection equal to riding a bare horse — even a fool knew which to choose: press forward without looking back.

Xie Erhu watched helplessly as over a dozen Mongol horse teams dodged the charge one by one; only four teams crashed headlong into the enemy lances. The cavalry on both sides burst through each other's gaps, and the results were so meager they were infuriating.

The proportion of riders unhorsed in the collision was nearly identical on both sides — only a handful fell in each pass. The difference was that the Ming cavalry had better protection, and many of those who fell could still struggle to their feet, whereas the Mongol riders' leather armor and heart-protector plates were relatively crude; once stabbed, they stayed down.

Moreover, most riders on both sides had aimed at the enemy's mount during the clash. A warhorse's vitality is tenacious — even after taking a fatal blow, it is still very hard to kill outright.

The Ming warhorses might have been wounded, or might not; even if wounded, galloping on posed little problem. The Mongol horses, lacking protection, were far more likely to suffer fatal wounds. Even if they did not drop dead on the spot, many bled uncontrollably and lost the ability to keep maneuvering.

It was just a simple set of horse armor, yet it brought calamity down upon Xie Erhu's Mongol brigade. At this point, even breaking through the Ming infantry line would have been meaningless.

The wide-front Ming cavalry swept directly from north to south like Mount Tai pressing down, and every Mongol horse team in its path scrambled to flee in rout, so that even the dismounted infantry currently engaged in battle were scattered.

Several loosened and breached sections of the Ming square formation, lacking follow-up soldiers to widen their advantage, were in turn smashed by the Ming troops. The square then further unfurled in the opposite direction, following Cao Wenzhao's cavalry as they spread into a single great horizontal line and pursued southward in formation, cutting down as they went.

Under Cao Wenzhao's command, squadron after squadron of half-armored cavalry rolled south like stone rollers sweeping across the Zhuanglang River, driving the Mongol horse teams before them.

In an instant, the battlefield's offensive and defensive roles reversed. Cao Wenzhao directed each assault formation to steady its pace and dispatched orderlies to urge the friendly forces behind them to advance.

He was a man who understood things clearly. He knew that Hong Chengchou had sent him into the Zhuanglang River not to kill the enemy, but to engage in internal competition — the ones he was competing against were Ding Shaoyin and Chai Shihua.

What they call "a rout like a mountain crumbling" means that one unit's collapse will cause friendly forces whose resolve was never firm to join the collapse — and conversely, the same holds true for the victor.

The friendly forces' victory steeled the resolve of Chai Shihua and Ding Shaoyin. The two corps stationed near Zhuanglang Guard immediately joined the pursuit as well — and were then persuaded to turn back.

Cao Wenzhao did not need them joining in to kick a drowning dog. Across the entire Zhuanglang River basin, over a hundred li deep, the Marshal's army now had no defensible terrain left. What he needed was relentless, all-out pursuit, to ensure these Mongol cavalry had no chance to regroup.

And the mission of Chai Shihua and Ding Shaoyin was to besiege Zhuanglang Guard City. Hong Chengchou had not sent only Cao Wenzhao, that single-minded overachiever — there was also Bai Guang'en.

Cao Wenzhao pursued southward at a measured pace for two days, advancing a full hundred li, all the way to the mouth of the Yellow River.

Meanwhile, at Zhuanglang Guard City to the north, Bai Guang'en, having eaten his fill in the rear, sallied forth once more, joined forces with Chai Shihua and Ding Shaoyin to surround Zhuanglang Guard City, and immediately began constructing siege equipment. Two days of fierce assault followed right after.

With no relief force outside and fresh defeat within, Basang's army had low morale. Fortunately, their rations had been decent these past two years, and the soldiers' night blindness had lessened somewhat. Taking advantage of the fact that the deep trenches outside the city were not yet finished, they held out until the second night, then broke out westward with Liu Chengyun, crossed the Zhuanglang River, and slipped into the Liancheng mountain region of Datong River Fort.

Nearly four months after being occupied by the Marshal's Office, Zhuanglang Guard was declared fallen.

Now the battlefield's dilemma was tossed back to Brigade Commander Wang Wenxiu, who was garrisoning Lanzhou.

The Yellow River crossing between Hehuang and Lanzhou was no longer safe; the connection between the two regions had been severed by the Ming army. If he transferred troops to garrison Hehuang, the surrendered troops at Lintao would be left unsupervised; if he defended Lanzhou to the death, Hehuang would have no strong troops to use.

Just at this moment, Liu Chengyun sent a letter from the Liancheng Tusi yamen to Lanzhou. He told Wang Wenxiu: "Leave Hehuang to me. I implore Brigade Commander Wang to defend Lanzhou to the death. As long as Lanzhou does not fall, the Ming army will not dare enter Hehuang!"

Happy New Year, everyone, and a joyful New Year's Day!